A Conservative Christmas Horror Story for the 2020s
“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung in the White House with care, in hopes that Saint Forty-Five soon would be there-”
I glanced at little Ayn and Rand to check their reactions to my dad jokes, but they were either asleep or pretending to be. So I tucked in their thin blue line quilts and I tiptoed off to bed.
In the middle of a nightmare that I was held prisoner in a FEMA death camp by Rachel Maddow in thigh-high boots, I was startled awake by what could only be described as a clatter. My wife was still asleep, her face relaxed in Ambien bliss. Had I imagined the noise? No, there it was again – from the roof!
“Raccoons!” I sprang from the bed, tore open the shutters, and grabbed the slingshot from the dresser (my family’s only defense in a blue state). The pale light of the moon on new-fallen snow made me chuckle to myself, “Some global warming this is.”
But what was that, beyond the driveway, a silhouette in drifts of snow – was that a miniature sleigh? And eight tiny…mooses? Meese? I rubbed my eyes and aimed the slingshot. Just as I had one in my sights – the one with the red nose lit up like a NASDAQ ticker in a plandemic – a loud shuffling from the roof spun me ‘round.
Flattening myself against the wall, I followed the sound to the family room just in time to hear a thud in the fireplace and see a cloud of smoke rise from the hearth. A smoke grenade!?
“Martial law!” I cried out. I knew it was coming, but Christmas Eve? What sort of sick Democrat governor declares martial law on Christmas Eve?
Then the smoke settled and I saw that it was only soot. Soot and boots? Someone had the gall to be standing in the fireplace. As they crouched down, I saw that there was a large sack thrown over their back, which they struggled to maneuver butt-first onto the hearth. They were wearing a fur-lined coat with a fur-lined hood, covered in ashes – and I suddenly knew who this was.
“Santa Claus!” I threw down the slingshot and went to help Ol’ Saint Nick with his sack, praying he’d finally brought me that tax shelter I’d asked for when I was five.
Santa brushed himself off and turned ‘round. Wait a minute. Where there should have been a beard was a black ‘kerchief. His fur-lined, hooded coat was covered in patches. I could just make out a bit of writing on one of them. “Abolish…gender,” I read aloud.
Santa glanced at the milk and cookies Rand and Ayn had left out for him. “I fucking hope this isn’t dairy milk,” he spat.
“You’re… you’re not Santa,” I stammered.
“God is dead, and so is Santa,” said the black-clad stranger, ripping a tinsel garland off the mantel. “There is only Santifa now.”
“No!” I ran to the window to look again at the sleigh in the moonlight. The snow had stopped falling long enough to see that it was a dog sled, pulled by eight pitbulls wearing little reindeer horns and studded denim vests. One wore what looked like a blinking clown nose.
“That’s Rude Boy,” Santifa explained. “He lost his nose in a protest, from a rubber bullet shot by the pigs.”
This reminded me of my slingshot lying on the carpet. I turned to lunge for it, but it was too late. Santifa had stuffed it in his sack already, along with the carefully wrapped gifts from beneath the tree.
“What are you doing with those!?” I bellowed.
“These are going to underprivileged and marginalized children,” Santifa explained, a twinkle in his weaselly eyes.
“My ancestors were Irish slaves!” I pleaded, hoping to reason with him. “My great-great-grandmother was a quarter Cherokee!”
Santifa ignored my pleading, knocking the Elf on a Shelf off the shelf. “Fuck Big Brother,” he muttered. Then he plucked my collectible Coca-Cola ornaments off the tree and tossed them in the fireplace, where they exploded into glitter against the bricks. When he set the Nativity scene on fire, I watched as Baby Jesus’s face melted into a wide-mouthed scream.
That wasn’t even the worst of it. The fabric garland my wife had hung above the mantel that read “LIVE, LAUGH, MERRY CHRISTMAS” was pulled down, and Santifa took a can of red spray paint from his sack.
“NO!” I cried.
Santifa laughed, his belly shaking, and crudely sprayed the words “HAPPY HOLIDAYS” where the garland had hung. “Next time leave out special cookies,” he said, pulling a pipe from his pocket and gesturing with it. Then he laid a finger aside of his nose. “Or, you know…”
“I don’t know what you’re implying.”
Santifa was climbing back into the fireplace with his sack full of toys. “…and a Molotov cocktail!” he shouted from halfway up the chimney, his voice muffled. “NO MILK!”
How would I explain this to little Ayn and Rand, I wondered. What if he returned on Easter to dig up the tulips and replace them with a community food garden? I shuddered. No, this was war, and I would fight on the side of Good – the side of cozy coal power against the side of cold coal in stockings. I looked for the closest thing I could find to replace my wife’s melted baby Jesus, gently placing a Ronald Reagan bobblehead in the charred manger. Then I logged into Parler and engaged the CAPS LOCK key.
Somewhere down the block, I could hear Santifa’s socialist war cry, “And to all a good night!”
